combat. And if Homer and Hefiod had their parties among the Grammarians, here was an excellent opportunity for Hefiod's favourers to make a facrifice of Homer. Hence a bare conjecture might spread into a tradition, then the tradition give occafion to an epigram, which is yet extant, and again the epigram (for want of knowing the time it was writ in) be alleged as a proof of that conjecture from whence it fprung. After this a * whole treatise was written upon it, which appears not very ancient, because it mentions Adrian: The ftory agrees in the main with the fhort account we find in Plutarch, "That Ganictor, the son of Amphidamus, king of Euboea, being ufed to cele"brate his father's funeral games, invited from all parts men famous for ftrength and wisdom. Among "these Homer and Hefiod arrived at Chalcis. The king Panidas prefided over the conteft, which being "finished, he decreed the Tripos to Hefiod, with this ❝ fentence, That the poet of peace and husbandry "better deferved to be crowned, than the poet of war "and contention. Whereupon Hefiod dedicated the "prize to the Mufes, with this infcription,

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ε Ἡσίοδος Μἔσαις Ελικωνίσι τὸν δ ̓ ἀνέθηκεν,

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Ὓμνῳ νικήσας ἐν Καλκίδι θεῖον Ομηρον.

Which are two lines taken from that place in Hefiod, where he mentions no antagonist, and altered, that the two names might be brought in, as is evident by comparing them with thefe,

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Ὓμνῳ νικήσαντα φέρειν τρίποδ ̓ ἀτωέντα,

Τὸν μὲν Ἐγὼ Μέσης Ελικωνιάδεσσ ̓ ἀνέθηκα.

To answer this ftory, we may take notice that Hefiod is generally placed after Homer. Grævius, his own commentator, fets him a hundred years lower; and whether he were fo or no, yet † Plutarch has flightly paffed the whole account as a fable. Nay, we may draw an argument against it from Hefiod himfelf: He had a love of Fame, which caufed him to

* Αγῶν Ὁμήρες καὶ Ἡσιόδε.

+ Plut. Banquet of the feven wife men. Plut. Symp. 1. 5. § 2. engage

engage at the funeral games, and which went fo far as to make him record his conquest in his own works; had he defeated Homer, the fame principle would have made him mention a name that could have fecured his own to immortality. A poet, who records his glory, would not omit the nobleft circumftance, and Homer, like a captive prince, had certainly graced the triumph of his adversary.

Towards the latter end of his life, there is another ftory invented, which makes him conclude it in a manner altogether beneath the greatnefs of a genius. We find in the life, faid to be written by Plutarch, a tradition," That he was warned by an oracle to beware of the young mens riddle. This remained long "obfcure to him, till he arrived at the island Io. "There, as he fat to behold the fishermen, they pro

pofed to him a riddle in verse, which he being un"able to anfwer, died for grief." This ftory refutes itself, by carrying fuperftition at one end, and folly at the other. It feems conceived with an air of derifion, to lay a great man in the duft after a foolish manner. The fame fort of hand might have framed that tale of Ariftotle's drowning himself because he could not account for the Euripus: the design is the fame, the turn the fame; and all the difference, that the great men are each to fuffer in his character, the one by a poetical riddle, the other by a philofophical problem. But these are accidents which can only arife from the meannefs of pride, or extravagance of madnefs: A foul enlarged with knowledge (fo vaftly as that of Homer) better knows the proper ftrefs which is to be laid upon every incident, and the proportion of concern, or careleffness with which it ought to be affected. But it is the fate of narrow capacities to measure mankind by a falfe ftandard, and imagine the great, like themfelves, capable of being difconcerted by little occafions; to frame their malignant fables according to this imagination, and to stand detected by it as by an evident mark of ignorance.

III. Stories of Ho- III. The third manner in which mer proceeding from the life of Homer has been written, trifling curiofity. is but an amaffing of all the tradi

tions and hints which the writers could meet with, great or little, in order to tell a story of him to the world. Perhaps the want of choice materials might put them upon the neceffity; or perhaps an injudicious defire of faying all they could, occafioned the fault. However it be, a life composed of trivial circumstances, which (though it give a true account of feveral paffages) fhews a man but little in that light in which he was most famous, and has hardly any thing correfpondent to the idea we entertain of him; fuch a life, I fay, will never anfwer rightly the demand the world has upon an historian. Yet the most formal account we have of Homer is of this nature, I mean that which is faid to be collected by Herodotus. It is, in fhort, an unfupported minute treatise, compofed of events which lie within the compafs of probability, and belong to the lowest fphere of life. It feems to be entirely conducted by the spirit of a grammarian; ever abounding with extempore verfes, as if it were to prove a thing fo unqueftionable as our author's title to rapture; and at the fame time the occafions are fo poorly invented, that they mifbecome the warmth of a poetical imagination. There is nothing in it above the life which a grammarian might lead himfelf; nay, it is but fuch a one as they commonly do lead, the highest ftage of which is to be mafter of a school. But because this is a treatife to which writers have had recourse for want of a better. I fhall give the following abstract of it.

Homer was born at Smyrna, about one hundred fixty-eight years after the fiege of Troy, and fix hundred twenty-two years before the expedition of Xerxes. His mother's name was Crytheis, who proving unlawfully with child, was fent away from Cuma by her uncle, with Ifmenias, one of thofe who led the colony of Smyrna, then building. A while after, as fhe was celebrating a festival with other women on the banks of the river Meles, fhe was delivered of Homer, whom fhe therefore named Melefigenes. Upon this fhe left Ifmenias, and fupported herself by her labour, till Phemius (who taught a fchool in Smyrna) fell in love with her, and married her. But both dying in procefs of time, the fchool fell to Homer, who inanaged VOL. I.

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it with fuch wisdom, that he was univerfally admired both by natives and ftrangers. Amongst these latter was Mentes, a master of a fhip from Leucadia, by whofe perfuafions and promifes he gave up his school, and went to travel with him he visited Spain and Italy, but was left behind at Ithaca upon account of a defluxion in his eyes. During his ftay, he was entertained by one Mentor, a man of fortune, juftice, and hofpitality, and learned the principal incidents of Ulyffes's life. But at the return of Mentes, he went from thence to Colophon, where, his defluxion renewing, he fell entirely blind. Upon this he could think of no better expedient than to go back to Smyrna, where perhaps he might be fupported by thofe who knew him, and have the leisure to addict himself to poetry. But there he found his.poverty increase, and his hopes of encouragement fail; fo that he removed to Cuma, and by the way was entertained for fome time at the house of one Tychius a leather-dreffer. At Cuma his poems were wonderfully admired, but when he proposed to eternize their town if they would allow him a falary, he was anfwered, that there would be no end of maintaining all the 'Oungo, or blind men, and hence he got the name of Homer. From Cumæ he went to Phocæa, where one Theftorides (a schoolmaster also) offered to maintain him if he would fuffer him to tranfcribe his verfes: this Homer complying with through mere neceffity, the other had no fooner gotten them but he removed to Chios; there the poems gained him wealth and honour, while the au thor himself hardly earned his bread by repeating them. At laft, fome who came from Chios having to the people that the fame verfes were published there by a schoolmaster, Homer refolved to find him out. Having therefore landed near that place, he was received by one Glaucus a fhepherd, (at whofe door he had like to have been worried by dogs) and carried by him to his master at Bolliffus, who, admir ing his knowledge, intrufted him with the education of his children. Here his praise began to spread, and Theftorides, who heard of his neighbourhood, fled before him. He removed however fome time afterwards

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to Chios, where he fet up a school of poetry, gained a competent fortune, married a wife, and had two daughters, the one of which died young, the other was married to his patron at Bolliffus. Here he in ferted in his poems the names of thofe to whom he had been moft obliged, as Mentes, Phemius, Mentor, and Tychius; and refolving for Athens, he made honourable mention of that city, to prepare the Athenians for a kind reception. But as he went, the fhip put in at Samos, where he continued the whole winter, finging at the houses of great men, with a train of boys after him. In Spring he went on board again in order to profecute his journey to Athens, but landing by the way at Ios, he fell fick, died, and was buried on the fea-fhore.

This is the life of Homer afcribed to Herodotus, though it is wonderful it fhould be fo, fince it evidently contradicts his own history, by placing Homer fix hundred twenty-two years before the expedition of Xerxes; whereas Herodotus himself, who was alive at the time of that expedition, fays, Homer was only * four hundred years before him. However, if we can imagine that there may be any thing of truth in the main parts of this treatise, we may gather thefe general observations from it: That he fhewed a great thirst after knowledge, by undertaking fuch long and numerous travels: That he manifefted an unexampled vigour of mind, by being able to write with more fire under the disadvantages of blindness, and the utmost poverty, than any poet after him in better circumftances; and that he had an unlimited fenfe of fame, (the attendant of noble fpirits) which prompted him to engage in new travels, both under thefe difadvantages, and the additional burden of old age.

But it will not perhaps be either improper or difficult to make fome conjectures, which feem to lay open the foundation from whence the traditions which frame the low lives of Homer have rifen. We may confider, that there are no hiftorians of his time, (or none handed down to us) who have mentioned him; and that

*Herod. 1. 2.